


Morons.

by DictionaryWrites



Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Hurt/Comfort, Paternal Instinct
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 19:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17310872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Mark finds Ehrlich sulking in the stairwell. Fury ensues.





	Morons.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnetheCatDetective](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/gifts).



> Set after S3x08, Sweet Dreams. For Cat for the fandom stocking!

“Where’s Ehrlich, Morrison?” Mark demands, barking out the question to make sure Morrison freezes in his tracks, and freeze, Morrison does. Standing as stationary as a startled deer in the middle of the corridor, his eyes wide, he glances down to Mark in front of him, his clipboard clenched tightly between his hands in front of his chest.

“Uh,” Morrison says, and Mark narrows his eyes.

“Don’t you lie to me, Morrison,” he says darkly. The two of them are _bosom friends_ , that Mark knows, and when Ehrlich slinks off (ha! As if that big lug can _slink_ ) to squirrel himself away somewhere in the hospital, Morrison will normally know where he is without having to page him.

“Doctor Craig, I really—”

“ _Morrison_.”

Morrison’s resolve weakens. “He’s down the back stairwell, sitting on one of the landings a few floors down.”

“Hmph,” Mark says, and he walks past him, feeling Morrison’s eyes on him as he moves down the stairwell. It isn’t that he _needs_ Ehrlich for anything, merely that Helen had said something offhand about Ehrlich looking very down, and Mark won’t stand for any of the residents _sulking_ over his disapproval of this ridiculous sleep study, although Lord knows Ehrlich doesn’t usually need an excuse to sulk.

Ehrlich is on floor four’s midway landing, his backside down on the landing, his ridiculous knees all the way up at the same level with his ridiculous chest, his elbows rested on his thighs, his fingers interlined either side of his ridiculous hair.

“Ehrlich!” Mark says sharply, and Ehrlich jumps, his head whipping up, his body unfolding like a Chinese puzzle box as he turns to stare at him, his eyes wide behind the square frames of his glasses.

“Doctor Craig?” Ehrlich grabs for his pager, squinting at it as if he wouldn’t have heard it ring. “Sorry, did you page me, I—”

“Shut up, Ehrlich,” Mark says, and Ehrlich closes his mouth with a quiet click. “Now, I don’t care what cockamamie research you get involved in on your own time, but this sleep study will not stop you from joining me in the OR – real surgeries, real patients, take precedence over you getting some shuteye with a blanket of damned electrodes, you hear me?”

Ehrlich stares at him, blankly.

“I _said_ ,” Mark says, “do you hear me?”

“Yes, Doctor Craig,” Ehrlich says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… I mean, you know, it’s twenty-five dollars, that’s all, and that’s a lot of money to help pay off my loan, and besides, I figured if I was sleeping in the hospital anyway it may as well do some use and I don’t know how much I really think of the study as— I mean, that’s not my area of expertise, I don’t pretend to know that much about it, except that REM sleep is super important and I do think it’s crucial just to think more sleep studies in general, because…” Ehrlich trails off, his gaze flitting to Mark’s scowling expression. “I know surgery is more important, Doctor Craig.”

“Mmm,” Mark says, but before he can turn on his heel to walk away, Ehrlich leans forward with that ridiculously earnest expression on his face that means he’s going to ask a stupid question.

“Doctor Craig, um—” Mark presses his lips together, looking directly at Ehrlich as he awkwardly says, “Am I offensive?”

Mark feels himself blink. “To look at, yes,” he says reflexively. Ehrlich bites his lip, glancing away for a second, and Mark feels his brows furrow slightly. “What do you mean, Ehrlich, _offensive_? You’re no different than many of the other young doctors in this place – sure, it’d be nice to see you talk without doing it around the foot in your mouth, but just look at that Fiscus, always with the obnoxious comments, and you should _hear_ some of the older residents and their thinly veiled sexual comments about one another. All of these idiots, thinking about sex more than patients. _You_ don’t do that, do you, Ehrlich?”

“Uh—”

“And the nurses are fussy anyway. I wouldn’t worry too much about them. Why, what are you in this stairwell fussing over?”

“Oh, you know,” Ehrlich says awkwardly, letting out an anxious laugh that echoes off the concrete walls and up and down the stairs. “Just, uh, thinking about quitting medicine, I guess.”

It is as if the world narrows down to a very fine point, with Ehrlich’s stupid face silhouetted in the eye of the needle, and Mark feels his hands tighten into fists as he stares Ehrlich down.

“What, in Pete’s name, would put a _ridiculous_ idea like that in your head, Ehrlich? I mean, for crying out loud!” He stops himself before he can go off on a rant about Ehrlich’s relative skill as a surgeon, as he is aware too much complimentary language could easily pump that Californian head with gas, and he demands, “Who gave you that idea, huh? All those years of schooling, lecturing, all your time here, all _my_ time training you, and you want to throw it away! Are you really that—”

“ _No_ ,” Ehrlich says plaintively, shaking his head and making his blond fringe flop around as he does so. “No, no, I don’t want to, I’m not going to, I wouldn’t, I love surgery, I don’t know what I’d be if I wasn’t a surgeon, Doctor Craig, I’ve always wanted to… No, no, I don’t really want to quit, I was just thinking about it because when we were in the OR it was one thing when Caldwell was talking about me dreaming weird and made everyone vote on it and I know it was a stupid joke but I didn’t figure the patient could hear me and then when he took me aside I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and it was only a joke and I didn’t say anything all that off-colour I only made a joke about drinking bathwater because I know that Caldwell likes me to keep it clean but then he said he didn’t want me to be in the OR with him and _then_ he said I shouldn’t be in the OR at all and that I should just quit medicine and—”

Mark holds up his hand, and Ehrlich very slowly trails off, heaving in a breath through his overlarge nose.

He needs a moment do digest some of this, because he can feel the _incandescence_ of the rage burning up in his throat, bubbling up like the lava in a volcano, but for the time being, he isn’t ready to let himself explode in Ehrlich’s direction, as Ehrlich – well Mark knows this – will misinterpret who exactly Mark is angry at.

“Doctor Caldwell,” he says, in a reasonable tone bordering on fury, “made the OR vote on _what_?”

“Well, I said that I dream in 8mm black and white, and he said everybody dreams in colour and that that was stupid, and then he got everybody to vote on whether they dreamt in colour or not.”

Caldwell is a moron. Mark knows this, has always known this – anyone who decides to specialise in paint jobs and nip/tucks instead of real surgery is unlikely to be worthy of much respect, but _this_? Having everybody _vote_ to humiliate a junior surgeon? He can scarcely think for the haze of red in front of him. But to then tell him to _quit medicine?_ Telling a _real_ surgeon, who actually wants to save lives instead of making them prettier, to quit medicine because of his personality defects?

It’s Ehrlich! Of course he has personality defects!

He’s never seen Ehrlich look so miserable. Stupid Ehrlich, stupid, impressionable Ehrlich, who’s been sitting in a stairwell thinking about _quitting medicine_ because Caldwell said—

“Get up, Ehrlich,” Mark snaps. Ehrlich is on his feet in less than a second, and as Mark stalks up the stairs, he thinks of how, recently, Morrison and Ehrlich have had days off at the same time. Neither of them has owned up to having a girlfriend, but, honestly, you’d have to be a _moron_ not to know what was going on.

Luckily for them, St Eligius is full of morons. Great doctors, but—

Morons.

“Morrison!” Mark snaps, and Morrison freezes in the doorway, glancing back at him before entering the room. “Take Ehrlich for coffee.”

“What?” Morrison asks. “Doctor Craig, I’m about to talk with a referral from downs—”

Mark snatches the clipboard out of his hand.

“Go,” he says sharply. “Ten minutes, now, go, get out of my sight, I hate looking at either of you.”

Morrison glances at Ehrlich, but then he _smiles_ (idiot!) and he grabs Ehrlich on the arm, dragging him with him down the corridor as Ehrlich stares behind him at Mark, but Mark immediately steps into the room, scanning the chart very carefully.

Ellen would have hugged him. Mark isn’t about to hug Ehrlich if one of them isn’t immediately about to die, and even _then_ , probably not, but Ellen would have hugged him. Is there a way he can engineer that, Ellen hugging him? Morrison will probably hug him.

Moron.

Moron, _idiot_ , stupid boy, who takes everything in the most literal way possible, and _Caldwell!_

Oh, Caldwell…

Mark feels his nostrils flair, but he forces a pleasant smile onto his face as he glances at the little girl sitting cross-legged in her hospital bed, who needs to be on a drip overnight, at least. Poor kid. He can focus on _her_ , for now.

And then—

 _Caldwell_.

That _bastard_.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open.


End file.
